Monthly Archives: July 2014

Well, I’ve had a couple two and three thousand word days over the weekend. I’m still behind (way behind) but I’m after today I’m off for the rest of the month so I can still do this. I’ve kind of gotten myself in a corner at the moment, though, so I think I’m going to leave myself a [NOTE] and skip past this scene since it’s really bogging me down. (And it immediately follows and relates to a previous scene that I think I’m going to change anyhow, so…)

Ha! I am only11288 words below par, or roughly one week behind where I ought to be. I’ve found that I can sometimes get two to three hundred words written in odd moments at work. Not much, granted, but it helps.

I’m off for the next three days and I’m hoping to do at least 3000 words each day. That will still leave me behind, but not as far behind. (A couple 5k days would be awesome…)

And the semi-good news is that Book One of the Other Mages trilogy is almost finished. Finally! I just need to wrap it up (I suck at endings) and then it’s on to trying to finish Book Two.

There is a scene that I missed for Book One (because I didn’t have my outline on hand) and I’m debating if I should write it or not. I think I will because you never know what useful tidbits might come out of it. (Maybe not useful for this book, but for the next two.)

I’m also tempted to write a side story or two for it.

No. Must stay focused: finish this and then attack Book Two. (I should probably start thinking about an outline for it.)

First, thank you (again) to all who commented on last week’s snippet and gave feedback and advice. It’s been jotted down to fix when I get there in editing. (I’m sorry I didn’t get to reply to posts — it’s been a rough week at work. Again.)

More from Sanguine, a science fiction novel (still being edited) with elements of semi-paranormal M/M romance.

(The following lines may or may not have been hacked and recombined and creatively punctuated to fit into 10 sentences.)

Gregor is escorting Murray onto the ship – I’ve skipped a few sentences from last week. Murray was surprised (and a little shaken) to find Gregor on board the ship.)

“Murray.” Gregor stopped walking and turned the younger man to face him. “You have nothing to fear here, I promise.”

Murray looked up at him and for a brief moment the wary look in his eyes was replaced by a glimmer of hope that disappeared almost before it was there, and he shook his head, slumping forward again.

“You know Trini wouldn’t have asked you to come here if it was a bad place,” Gregor said softly. “And you know I wouldn’t have let you come here if it was a bad place.”

I started Wednesday 9767 words behind par. (Tuesday was not overly productive.)

8380 behind par going into Thursday. Yeah! Progress!

But as of this writing, I am 9993 words behind. *sigh* And I have spent most of the day fighting with my computer, finally resorting to a total reboot, which seems to have resulted in a slightly more cooperative piece of equipment.

I was supposed to have 4 days off next week but agreed to go in on Monday, so I’ll be working for the next three days and not making much progress. I’m hoping to get at least 1000 words done each of those days, though. (And I haven’t started writing today yet.)

And on Tuesday I’ll be spending most of my day downstairs where my computer isn’t, waiting for a delivery. (I ordered a larger cage for my rats and it’s supposed to arrive then. I will then have to assemble it, and between now and then I need to clear space for it in my room. In the process I will, hopefully, find my wrist blood pressure cuff…)

So, yeah, it’s going to be tough to get caught up this month. (But on a brighter note, the new cage will be much easier to clean and care for so it shouldn’t take as big of a chunk out of my day as the current one does.)

On the other hand, if I’m where my computer isn’t and I write long hand, I could get a lot of words churned out.

And I finally worked through a rather rough scene so the rest should be fairly smooth sailing.

So, I am 7353 words behind par as of this writing. I have about half an hour before I have to get ready for work, though, so I might be able to get down to under a 7k deficit. I need to find my outline though.

Yes! Good news! I managed to wrestle the thing back on track and am back to where my outline becomes effective again.

The not so good news is that a lot of stuff is going to have to be cut out in the rewrite as it doesn’t really pertain to the plot.

The I’m-not-sure-if-it’s-a-good-thing-or-a-bad-thing is that a large chunk of what is being cut is almost a plot bunny in itself. I just have to decide if it’s going to be bonus side stories on the current secondary characters or if it is lending itself to a whole new novel with new characters, etc. I’m rather leaning toward the side stories.

Anyhow, I’m off to brave the mess that is my computer hutch to try to find my outline. Or maybe I’ll just print a new one – and hope that the electronic version has the most recent changes on it…

First, thank you to all who commented on last week’s snippet and gave feedback and advice. It’s been jotted down to fix when I get there in editing. (I’m sorry I didn’t get to reply to posts — it’s been a rough week at work.)

More from Sanguine, a science fiction novel (still being edited) with elements of semi-paranormal M/M romance.

(The following lines may or may not have been hacked and recombined and creatively punctuated to fit into 10 sentences.)

Skipping ahead a bit from last week. Murray has arrived and Kaen and Trini are watching through the security system as Gregor goes to the airlock to bring him on board.

Murray Alexander was not what Kaen had expected: the security camera showed him a young man, tall and well-muscled yet somehow giving the impression that he was a 90 pound weakling. His shoulder length brown hair was pulled back in a pony tail and his light brown eyes were down when they weren’t darting back and forth, and his body was hunched forward as he waited for the airlock to open. He was maybe Gregor’s age although Kaen had doubts that he was old enough to be considered an adult.

Gregor reached the hatch and Kaen flipped on the audio as the inner door opened and Murray entered.

“G-Gregor!” he said, startled. “I — I thought… Trini told me that she was working on this ship and that…” He stopped, flushed bright red, and stared at the floor again.

“It’s all right, Murray, you’re in the right place. Trini’s our Chief Engineer. Come on, I’ll take you to meet the captain.”

Well, I got caught up — briefly. I never got ahead though, and now I’m working 5 days in a row which is killing my writing.

It doesn’t help that I woke up today feeling like I’d been hit by a truck, either. I feel miserable and can barely concentrate on anything. (It’s going to be an interesting night at work…)

I also ran into a snag in the novel…

Remember that minor annoyance who turned into a plot point? Well, his death spawned a scene that was supposed to be an emotional healing ritual for all of the people involved, but one of my main characters got rather caught up in it and the scene didn’t go quite as planned. *sigh* I ended up going with my original ending for the scene and left myself a note to figure out how I got there when I do the rewrite. (I’m thinking of retconning the whole thing and having the ritual be focused on the main character involved. It would actually make sense…)

But it’s not as bad as it sounds: the stats page on the Camp NaNoWriMo site tells me that at my current rate I’ll finish on August 9th, so that’s not too bad, and I’m only a couple days behind on par, although that’s going to change between now and Tuesday, which is my first day off. By Monday’s post it’s going to look a lot worse…

In my first NaNoWriMo, a character who was supposed to be very minor took on a major role and then halfway or more through the book had a complete change of alignment that is resulting in rewriting the entire first half of the book. That novel is what will be Book Three of The Other Mages trilogy.

I am currently working on trying to finish Book Two, and a character who was supposed to be a minor annoyance has become a plot point. I’m not quite sure where that part of the plot is going yet, but then, I have the feeling that I’ve lost more than a few threads in this draft.

And the 16 hour shift that I worked on Saturday has helped neither word count nor coherence, and I am now 2795 words behind where I need to be for today. And I’m sure tomorrow’s number will be worse – at least, before I start writing it will be.

More from Sanguine, a science fiction novel (still in progress) with elements of semi-paranormal M/M romance.

(I am done with beta readers, and Sanguine is in next-to-final-edit stage, so this is still a work in progress and the following lines may or may not have been hacked and recombined and creatively punctuated to fit into 10 sentences.)

(Actually, this more than 10 sentences but I gave up cutting them down, and they’re short. I’ll try to do better next week.)

Moving on from Trini to introduce another secondary character.

Kaen, Gregor, and Trini are getting Trini set up in the ship’s computer systems, and Trini asks if they have started advertising for crew yet.

As of this writing I am caught up through yesterday. I need to do about 4000 words today to get caught up through tomorrow.

Why?

Because I agreed to work a double tomorrow which means that I’m going to get very little if any writing done. (I’m hoping to have a few odd moments here and there to scribble a few paragraphs to type when I get home.)

Of course, that leads to things like this gem from yesterday:

Trebor snickered and Sidden gave me a mock glare.

HIM! Gave HIM a mock glare! This is not first person, I am not Trebor, and I am NOT breaking the 4th wall!

I’m also working Sunday and Monday and on work days I only seem to get maybe 1000 words or so written, so if I don’t get caught up through tomorrow today I’ll be two or three days behind by Tuesday, which is cage cleaning day…

So, yeah, I need to write at least 4000 words today. More if I can manage it.

Meanwhile, there are a lot of other things that I want and need to do today in addition to writing another 4000 words: I want to write a post for my rat blog, need to get my Sunday Snippet post ready to publish, want to set up my lamp that’s been in my way for a couple months so that I have better light at my desk, need to clean out the stuff in my work bag so I can actually find something when I’m looking for it…